Journal Archives

Willy T. has currenly has 8 fewer recs than me and the my thread maintained a decent lead in recs for quite awhile, and yet Willy T's thread is being put at the top of the Trending Now list and mine has disappeared into "General Discussion".

We organized like no campaign had organized before — and won the Democratic primary.

We built a movement — and the country elected the first-ever African American president.

We know that the improbable is far from impossible.

Now, former staffers from President Obama’s campaigns, along with former staffers from OFA, are joining with the thousands of Americans who are calling on Elizabeth Warren to run for president in 2016.

Rising income inequality is the challenge of our times, and we want someone who will stand up for working families and take on the Wall Street banks and special interests that took down our economy.
We urge Elizabeth Warren to run for president in 2016.
Signed,

I have been targeted repeatedly for my activism against the use of thousands of toxic chemicals that have not even basic testing done. Only a handful have had adequate testing.

But the big event was in 1991 after I saw a tape of a speech given by Ross Perot at the National Press Club... got incredibly excited and motivated. I called the Perot Group in Dallas and told them I thought he would make a very good president and that I was getting into the car to drive all over Florida to show the tape to various groups asking them whether they would support such a guy for president. When I got to Tampa I met Jack Gargan and he helped get the ball really rolling.

I ordered a hundred copies of the tape and mailed them to key people.

After the movement really started my husband and I were initially at the center of activity even though it was in the isolated island of Key West. We were inundated with people who were covert ops types who kept knocking at our door and offering "to help". They a woman claiming to be a retired CIA operative said she was setting up an office in Miami for me with multiple phones, etc. I declined. Our phones were tapped. We were followed everywhere. Someone climbed our high fence late at night and put weird looking sharp metal shards in our underwear that was hanging there! How strange is that. Then we started getting sick. And then very, very sick. After a few months of this my spouse found me uncoscious on the floor. I had to be rushed to the hospital for what turned out to be organophosphate poisoning. I was the color of cement when I arrived and the emergency room. The ER staff said if he hadn't gotten there when he did that I only had a few minutes to live. They brought me back with atropine but I was deathly ill for five months, and even today have serious neurological issues.

I can never prove that I was purposefully poisoned, as was my husband, but one thing is for sure -- we never used pesticides in our house, so it had to come from another source.

According to the DSCD, each race is polling within the margin of error.

I'm living in poverty and don't even have an indoor tub or shower, but I'm giving money to the senatorial campaigns again today. Emails from DSCD say that the final quarterly FEC deadline hits within 48 hours—so time is running out. The risk (of losing) is so great that DSCD says that for the next 48 hours ONLY, a group of Democratic Senators will match our gifts 3-to-1."

Al Franken's appeal says, "Every dollar you give will be matched 3-to-1. Give $10, and it’ll count for $30. Give $33.33, and it’ll count for $99.99. You get the idea."

Stop and think. Really take time to think. Clear away the fog of distractions and the sure opinions of long held priorities.

The US has become the most economically unequal country among modern economies. Poverty is rising, the middle class, complicit in our problems, is now suffering from the results and shrinking in size, wealth and power. The abandoned poor, people who have never yet felt the reality of the American dream; the uncredentialed people in the deltas, hollows, barrios, rustbelts and slums of America, are faced with disdain, poor social and education systems and the automation of work. They slide farther into degradation without a nod from the rest.

The culture of the nation has changed. The purpose of education has mutated from the development of informed citizens to the pursuit of personal gain. Government as a process in service to the people has been denigrated to the point of being seen as an impediment to the public good.

We have become the most violent, warlike and imperialistic country in the world. We have close to 1000 overseas military bases and facilities. Our GIs and Soldiers are now warriors and heroes, no matter what they do. To question military action is to be seen as ungrateful and unpatriotic. We decry our loss of dominance in the world as if we have it as a right.

The products of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math have polluted the earth, produced climate change and created horrible chemical, infectious and explosive weapons of mass killing, maiming and horrible long term sickness. We are now threatened with being the cause of the extinction of our grandchildren. We ignore these conditions in the interest of convenience and novelty. Such conditions are produced in the interest of profit and power.

The governance of our country has been disastrously corrupted by the power of wealth. Both parties are involved. Money distorts elections, legislation and the legal system. Issues of interest to the rich are approved and implemented. Issues seen as threatening to the politics of wealth are manipulated or stopped. Issues of equality, environmental quality, an economy of benefit to all, are not in the interest of those whose wealth is generated by maintaining privilege, externalizing the cost of pollution and cheap labor.

The disaggregation of Americans, especially among liberal/progressives, retards our ability to join together to identify and focus on solutions to core problems. Decades of disparate advocacy have been fruitless. Unity is essential. No positive change has ever taken place without organized political pressure. The good of all cannot be subordinate to the good of me, or my special interest.

The Public Good must become the priority it was at the time of the constitutional convention. We can commit ourselves to work for democratic participation without giving up other causes. Democratic participation has got to be the first priority. Money cannot be allowed to continue to purchase control of our system of government. It is crucial and urgent that we join together to rebuild a democratically representative republic in order to address the essential issues of our time before they are beyond our reach.